Mother’s Day! It crept up on me this year, like a combination of a hurricane and tsunami.

I probably feel this way in part from a growing sense of total lack of preparation, increasing stress levels and sleep withdrawal.

Another reason might be that my little munchkins decided that they’d had enough of their five-star hotel and needed an early upgrade — the nerve!

I never read about premature babies. I don’t know a thing about premature babies! Eight weeks early like, “Hello!”, except it’s a Beyoncé and Adele duet. At least, that’s how I interpret their cries.

How do you write about something that transcends language? In a four-hour period, on my mother-in-law’s birthday, eight weeks early, I got a worried call from my wife, consulted with several doctors and met my children, who were born two minutes apart.

That’s the CliffsNotes version. My heart probably stopped a few times, and I almost fainted several times within that period. Then I saw their faces and I felt like I could levitate. Money won’t get you high like this, no. Elation.

Sidebar: I twisted my ankle badly a year ago (thanks Jordan). It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. I now know, with absolute certainty, that it is not the worst pain that human beings can feel. Women are incredible. Labour is miraculous. I already knew this, but now I really know. I began this column mentioning Mother’s Day because mothers deserve a day of recognition quarterly for everything they do.

My mother brought all the things I forgot as we rushed to the hospital for the labour, then she picked up my mother-in-law who flew from Hong Kong(!) to help us adjust to new parenthood.

There is a saying in the Bahá’í faith: ‘Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble, and there is always time.”

I can’t stress enough about how mothers exemplify this quality every day. Hopefully in our family I can work towards embodying and cultivating this ideal, as my family, including my father, have shown.

My wife and I have been adjusting to this new lifestyle. She’s doing better than I am but we’re working together, with the help of family and friends.

There is something to be said about the power of love within a close-knit family. The love and service that my wife and I have felt these past few days has been amazing.

I can’t finish this column without mentioning another amazing mother — my grandmother, Bernice Violet Lillian Symonds. She winged her flight to the next world a few days after my girls were born, and the first thing I mentioned to the nurses about one of my twins was that she made faces exactly like my grandmother. Now she’ll always be with me in more ways than one. How great is that!